The Red Kite
The Red Kite
Clara arrived ten minutes early and parked in her usual place opposite the school. The afternoon routine had already begun. Parents gathered near the gates, some talking, others scrolling through their phones while traffic moved steadily along the road. A group of younger children kicked a football across a patch of grass nearby as they waited for older brothers and sisters to appear. Clara glanced briefly at the dashboard clock before replying to a message from work. It was something minor, a query that could easily have waited until tomorrow, but she answered it anyway before putting her phone down beside her. A few minutes later, the final bell sounded.
The school gates opened and pupils began spilling onto the pavement in clusters. Blazers hung open, ties loosened, and conversations carried across the road as teenagers drifted towards buses, waiting parents and groups of friends. Clara watched absent-mindedly until she spotted Ella. She always seemed to find her immediately, even amongst hundreds of other faces. Ella was laughing at something one of her friends had said, rolling her eyes dramatically before saying goodbye and crossing the road towards the car. The passenger door opened and Ella climbed in, dropping her bag onto the back seat.
“How was school?”
“Fine.”
Clara smiled.
“That’s detailed.”
“I try.”
Ella grinned before fastening her seatbelt. Within moments she was talking about revision, a science worksheet she had forgotten to hand in, and whether there was any milk left at home. The conversation moved easily between practical matters and half-finished stories from the school day, following a familiar rhythm they had settled into years ago. Clara listened while pulling away from the kerb, occasionally offering a reminder about homework or asking a question she already knew would receive a deliberately vague answer.
At a set of traffic lights, she glanced briefly towards her sister. Ella was fifteen now and would turn sixteen in a few months’ time. The thought arrived quietly and, for reasons Clara could not have fully explained, seemed to linger a little longer than usual before she turned her attention back to the road ahead.
The lights changed. Clara drove on.
Useful People
Clara worked as an NHS Support Worker and was good at it. Not in the way some people were good at their jobs because they were ambitious or eager to impress, but because she genuinely seemed to understand what vulnerable people needed. She could sit beside somebody in distress without appearing uncomfortable. She remembered names, listened carefully, and rarely made people feel rushed. Patients often asked for her specifically, whilst colleagues quickly learned that if Clara promised to do something, it would be done.
There was a man on one of the wards who repeatedly asked the same questions every time she worked a late shift. Some staff found him difficult. Others avoided long conversations because they knew they would end up repeating themselves. Clara never seemed particularly bothered. She would answer him, reassure him, answer him again, and then reassure him once more. One evening, after watching her have the same conversation four times in less than an hour, a colleague shook her head and laughed.
“I don’t know how you do it.”
Clara looked genuinely confused.
“Do what?”
“Stay patient.”
The answer seemed obvious to her.
“He’s worried.”
As though that explained everything. Perhaps it did.
Outside work, people relied upon Clara in much the same way. Friends called when they needed advice. Neighbours knocked when they needed help. Ella knew exactly where every important document in the house could be found because Clara was the one who organised them. School letters, medical appointments, prescription reminders, bills, forms, passwords, emergency contacts. Clara carried these things in her head so naturally that she rarely noticed she was doing it.
Sam sometimes teased her about it.
“You’ve got a system for everything.”
“I don’t.”
“You colour-code shopping lists.”
“That isn’t a system.”
“It literally is.”
Clara would laugh and change the subject.
The truth was that organisation had become so familiar she no longer saw it as a skill. She simply noticed things that needed doing and did them. If somebody forgot something, she remembered it. If something needed arranging, she arranged it. If there was a problem, she looked for a solution. The possibility of leaving things unfinished often felt more uncomfortable than the work itself.
People described Clara as caring, capable, mature and resilient. They were not wrong. She was all of those things. Yet there was something else that nobody ever seemed to mention. Clara was useful. The word followed her quietly throughout her life. Useful at work. Useful at home. Useful to friends. Useful to family. Useful to strangers. She had been useful for so long that she had stopped noticing how much of herself lived inside that role.
The Week Before Sixteen
Years later, Clara would struggle to remember the exact order in which things happened. Memory had a way of rearranging itself around important events. Certain moments remained perfectly clear whilst others disappeared entirely. Conversations blurred together. Dates became uncertain. Whole months seemed to collapse into a handful of images. Yet she remembered the week before her sixteenth birthday surprisingly well. At the time, there had seemed nothing particularly important about it.
Her mother was tired more often than usual, though nobody appeared especially concerned. Clara remembered her complaining about her legs and occasionally struggling to carry things around the house. There had been hospital appointments, but there had been hospital appointments before. Adults spoke in partial sentences when they thought children were not listening. Clara had learned long ago that listening carefully often revealed more than asking questions.
School carried on as normal. Ella was still young enough to believe that older sisters knew everything. She followed Clara from room to room whenever she was home and occasionally became upset if Clara went out without her. At the time, Clara found it mildly irritating. Years later it would become one of the memories she cherished most.
Her father seemed distracted that week. Not distant exactly, but preoccupied. Clara remembered him spending longer periods outside in the garden smoking cigarettes he claimed he had given up years earlier. Sometimes she watched him through the kitchen window whilst pretending to wash dishes. Looking back, she wondered what he already knew and what he was trying not to know.
One evening, a few days before her birthday, the family sat together eating dinner. The conversation itself had long since vanished from memory, but Clara could still picture the room. The fading daylight beyond the window. Ella swinging her legs beneath the table because they did not yet reach the floor. Her mother’s laughter at something she could no longer remember. Her father’s face turning briefly towards the television when the news began.
Nothing dramatic happened. Nothing remarkable was said. Nobody announced that life was about to divide itself into before and after. If anything, that was what Clara remembered most clearly. The ordinariness of it. The complete absence of warning. The quiet assumption that tomorrow would look much the same as today.
It didn’t.
If People Found Out
The months that followed seemed to gather speed. The diagnosis arrived. A few months later, her father left. Neither event felt real at first. Clara would later struggle to remember exactly how much time passed between one and the other. What she remembered more clearly was the feeling that the adults around her had stopped being adults.
Her mother tried to hold everything together for as long as she could. For a while she continued cooking, shopping, attending appointments and insisting that life would carry on much as it always had. Yet the illness was not interested in her plans. Tasks took longer. Walking became more difficult. Exhaustion settled into the house like an unwelcome guest that refused to leave.
At first Clara simply helped. She carried shopping bags, collected prescriptions and watched Ella when her mother attended appointments. Then she began making phone calls. Booking appointments. Speaking to schools. Chasing referrals. Remembering things that other people forgot. The responsibilities accumulated gradually enough that nobody ever formally handed them to her. One day she simply realised she had become the person everybody turned towards when something needed sorting.
Her aunt appeared regularly during that period, often arriving without warning and leaving just as unexpectedly. She spoke loudly about family, concern and loyalty, usually whilst borrowing money she never seemed able to repay. She offered advice freely but practical help far less often. Clara learned quickly that her aunt’s presence rarely made things easier. More often it created arguments, tension and another person her mother felt obliged to manage.
The phrase her mother repeated most often was simple.
“We manage.”
At first it sounded reassuring. Then it became a response to almost everything.
“Do you need help?”
“We manage.”
“Is there anyone supporting you?”
“We manage.”
“Are you coping?”
“We manage.”
The words seemed to carry a meaning beyond their surface. Clara gradually came to understand that her mother was frightened. Not only of the illness, but of what might happen if people realised how difficult things had become. There were forms, assessments and conversations that appeared to belong to a world neither of them fully understood. Somewhere beneath them all sat a fear that if the wrong people knew too much, decisions might be made that could not be undone.
Clara absorbed that fear without ever discussing it openly. She became careful about what she said to teachers, neighbours and relatives. One afternoon, a receptionist at the hospital smiled kindly as Clara helped her mother towards the exit and asked whether they had much support at home. The question caught her off guard. For a moment, Clara considered answering honestly. About the appointments. About Ella. About the exhaustion that seemed to have settled over the house. Instead, she glanced towards her mother, who answered first.
“We manage.” The receptionist nodded and returned to her paperwork.
The exchange lasted only a few seconds, yet Clara remembered the relief she felt as they walked away. No further questions. No forms. No conversations. No strangers becoming involved in things that felt as though they belonged to the family. Later, when similar questions appeared from teachers, neighbours and relatives, Clara often found herself giving much the same answer.
“We’re fine.” It wasn’t entirely true. Neither did it feel entirely false.
Difficult weeks were described as busy weeks. Missed homework became forgetfulness. Tiredness became a late night. The truth felt dangerous. The truth invited questions. School became increasingly difficult to keep pace with. Her attendance slipped. Homework was submitted late. Revision happened when there was time, which often meant there was no time at all. Teachers noticed the changes long before Clara acknowledged them herself. Most said little beyond the occasional reminder or expression of concern. One did more.
Mrs Collins had taught English for over thirty years and possessed the unsettling ability to notice things people preferred to keep hidden. One afternoon, after Clara had arrived late for the third time that week, she quietly asked her to stay behind for a few minutes after class.
The conversation itself was unremarkable. Mrs Collins asked how things were at home. Clara said they were fine. Mrs Collins asked whether there was anything she needed. Clara said there wasn’t. The teacher nodded, neither convinced nor confrontational. Before Clara left the room, she simply said that if things ever changed, she knew where to find her. It was one of the few occasions during that period when somebody had asked about Clara rather than what Clara could do for somebody else. A few months later, Mrs Collins retired and moved away.
At home, her mother’s condition worsened. At school, deadlines continued arriving. Ella still needed collecting, feeding, comforting and reassuring. The world did not pause to acknowledge any of it. So Clara did what she had learned everybody else was doing.
She managed.
Parents’ Evening
The conversation began with a letter on the kitchen table. Clara had returned home from school to find her mother studying it whilst Ella coloured noisily beside her. By then, letters, forms and appointment slips had become a regular feature of family life. There always seemed to be something requiring a signature, a phone call or a reply.
“It’s parents’ evening next Thursday,” her mother said. Clara nodded and reached for the kettle. For a few moments neither of them spoke. Then her mother looked down at the letter again.
“I don’t think I’m going to manage it this year.” The words were spoken quietly, almost apologetically. Clara glanced towards her. The illness had progressed steadily over the previous months. Some days were better than others, but evenings had become increasingly difficult. By the end of the day her mother was often exhausted long before she admitted it.
“I’ll go,” Clara said. Her mother smiled. The conversation ended there. Neither of them discussed whether it was appropriate for a seventeen-year-old to attend a parents’ evening on behalf of her younger sister. Neither questioned it. By then there were many things that no longer felt unusual simply because they had become necessary.
A week later, Clara found herself sitting in a brightly lit primary school classroom surrounded by parents she had never met. Children’s artwork covered the walls. Handwriting charts hung beside colourful displays explaining fractions and spelling rules. Several adults sat balancing awkwardly on chairs clearly designed for somebody half their size. The conversations taking place around her were entirely ordinary. Reading levels. Friendships. Homework. School trips. Clara listened politely whilst waiting for Ella’s appointment, feeling oddly detached from it all.
Then it was their turn.
Mrs Parker smiled warmly as they sat opposite one another. “Ella’s doing wonderfully.” Clara felt an immediate sense of relief before realising how absurd it was. She had never expected anything different. The teacher spoke about Ella’s confidence, her kindness towards other pupils, and her tendency to become distracted whenever her friends were nearby.
“That sounds about right,” Clara said. Mrs Parker laughed. “It usually is.” The conversation continued for several minutes. Reading. Writing. Maths. Future school trips. The sorts of things discussed at parents’ evenings across the country every day. Then, without thinking, Mrs Parker said:
“You should be very proud of her.”
Clara nodded. “I am.” The response arrived naturally. Neither of them corrected it. A few minutes later the meeting was over.
Outside, the temperature had dropped sharply. The first spots of rain began falling before they had reached the end of the school grounds. “Oh no,” Ella groaned, looking upwards. “We’re going to get soaked.”
“We’ll survive.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re old.”
Clara laughed despite herself.
They continued walking as the rain became heavier. Within minutes they were both hurrying along the pavement, clutching school reports and information sheets beneath their coats in a largely unsuccessful attempt to keep them dry.
“I’m freezing,” Ella complained.
“You’ll live.”
“I don’t think I will.”
“You will.”
Ella mumbled, “Maybe I will.” Clara chuckled under a smile.
Halfway home, Ella slipped her hand into Clara’s. Neither of them commented on it. They simply kept walking through the rain.
Family, Apparently
The church was fuller than Clara expected. She sat beside Ella, turning the order of service over in her hands whilst people continued filing into the pews around them. Conversations drifted quietly through the building before dissolving into silence. Somewhere behind her, somebody was crying.
Beneath a smiling photograph of their mother were the words:
Carol Clara Simmons
1981–2019
Clara stared at the dates for longer than she intended. Thirty-eight years. The number seemed wrong somehow. Too small. Too unfinished.
Over the previous few years she had become familiar with hospitals, specialists, waiting rooms and conversations that rarely ended with certainty. She had learned more about illness than she had ever wanted to know. Yet even now, seeing her mother’s age printed in black ink felt strangely impossible.
A few rows behind her, somebody spoke in a hushed voice. “Thirty-eight. That’s no age at all.” The words drifted briefly through the church before disappearing into the murmur of the crowd. Clara looked down at the booklet again. Nineteen. That was how old her mother had been when she became a parent. Or almost. The thought arrived unexpectedly and settled somewhere deep inside her. At nineteen, Carol had been raising a baby. At nineteen, Clara was arranging her funeral.
Ella shifted slightly beside her and slipped her hand into Clara’s.
The service had not even begun.
Sometime later, Clara would remember very little of what was actually said that day. She remembered faces more than words. People she had not seen for years seemed to emerge from nowhere, offering condolences, embraces and promises. Everybody appeared shocked. Everybody appeared saddened. Everybody appeared to have a story about Carol.
Afterwards, people gathered in the church hall balancing cups of tea and paper plates whilst speaking softly about loss, family and happier times. Clara moved between conversations almost automatically. She thanked people for coming. Accepted sympathy. Checked on Ella. Smiled when expected. By the end of the afternoon she felt as though she had spent hours performing a version of herself for other people.
May seemed entirely at ease. Several times Clara watched her standing at the centre of small groups, speaking warmly about Carol. People listened attentively. Some cried. Others nodded sympathetically as May recalled memories from years gone by. To anyone observing from a distance, she looked exactly as someone grieving should. Perhaps that was what unsettled Clara most.
The performance was flawless.
At one point, an elderly family friend placed a hand gently on Clara’s shoulder and told her that at least she had May. Clara smiled politely and thanked her. The woman nodded, reassured by her own observation.
“Family is everything at times like this.”
Clara said nothing.
A few years earlier, Clara had stood in the kitchen watching May borrow money from her mother for what seemed like the hundredth time. Carol sat at the table whilst May opened her purse and counted the notes herself. By then, even simple tasks had begun slipping beyond her mother’s reach. May promised, as she always did, that she would pay it back soon.
Neither of them believed it.
Clara remembered catching May’s eye across the room afterwards. Something had passed between them. Not an argument. Not even resentment. Simply recognition.
May knew. And Clara knew she knew. The money was never mentioned again.
As the afternoon wore on, more promises arrived. People spoke about helping. About keeping in touch. About being there if the girls needed anything. Clara understood that most of them meant well. They believed what they were saying in the moment they said it. Yet experience had already taught her that grief often made people generous for a day and absent for a year.
Eventually the visitors began drifting away. Cars disappeared one by one from the car park. Chairs were stacked. Empty cups were cleared. The noise gradually faded until only a handful of people remained. Then they left too.
Back at the house, sympathy cards stood neatly along the mantelpiece and flowers occupied every available surface. The rooms felt crowded with reminders of Mum and strangely empty without her. Ella sat quietly on the sofa whilst Clara stood at the front window watching a car pull away from the kerb before disappearing slowly around the corner.
Auntie May always did.
The Age Her Sister Is Now
The conversation began with GCSEs, but by the end of the evening they were discussing something else entirely.
Ella sat at the dining table surrounded by revision guides, highlighted notes and half-finished flashcards. Every available surface appeared to have acquired a textbook. Clara had lost count of the number of times she had been told that the upcoming exams would determine the entire course of Ella’s future. “I don’t understand how anybody passes maths,” Ella announced, staring at a page as though it had personally offended her. Clara looked up from her tea. “You usually say that before getting a good mark.” Ella sighed. “That’s because the universe enjoys making me suffer.” Clara smiled faintly. “I don’t think that’s how maths works.” “You don’t know.” “I did GCSE maths.” Ella glanced at her. “About ten years ago.” “Not quite.” “Basically ancient history then.” Clara smiled and returned to her tea.
For a while the conversation remained focused on revision, coursework deadlines and mock exam results. Then, as often happened, it drifted elsewhere. Ella began talking about one of her friends, who had not replied to a message for almost two days. Ordinarily it would have meant very little, but at fifteen almost everything could feel significant. Ella was convinced something was wrong. “Maybe she’s annoyed with me,” she said. Clara looked up from her tea. “Why would she be annoyed with you?” “I don’t know.” Clara paused. “Then you’re trying to solve a problem before you know there is one.” Ella leaned back in her chair. “That’s very annoying.” “It usually is.” “You always say things like that.” “Because they’re usually true.”
The conversation moved on, yet the comment stayed with Clara long after Ella had gone upstairs. Later that evening, whilst loading the dishwasher, Clara found herself thinking about unanswered messages. Not Ella’s, but her father’s. The connection seemed strange at first, yet the more she thought about it, the more obvious it became.
When he left, he had left his mobile phone behind. Clara could still picture it sitting on the small table near the front door. At first she barely noticed it. Then she began noticing it every time she walked past. The screen remained dark. Nobody called. Nobody collected it. Clara remembered checking it more than once. Not because she expected a message, but because part of her still believed there must be some explanation. Days became weeks. Eventually her mother placed the phone in a drawer and life continued around the absence it represented.
Looking back, what struck Clara most was not how upset she had been. It was how practical her thoughts had become. At fifteen, she had not spent much time asking herself why her father had left. She had been too busy trying to work out what happened next. If Ella asked where he was, what should she say? If a school form needed signing, who would do it? If her mother became more unwell, what would happen then? The questions arrived one after another, leaving little room for anything else.
Over the following days, Clara found herself noticing Ella differently. Not because her sister had changed, but because she had suddenly become aware of something she had somehow overlooked. Ella was fifteen. Nearly sixteen. The same age Clara had been when everything began. The thought returned repeatedly: whilst driving home from work, whilst making dinner, whilst listening to Ella complain about revision, friendships and the injustice of having to make decisions about the future before she felt ready. The concerns were entirely ordinary, exactly the sort of things a fifteen-year-old should be worrying about. Clara realised that what unsettled her was not the nature of the worries themselves, but the age of the person carrying them.
One evening, whilst Ella spoke anxiously about a mock exam she was convinced had gone badly, Clara found herself studying her face for a moment longer than usual. Ella noticed immediately. “What?” “Nothing.” “You’ve got that look.” Clara smiled. “What look?” “The one where you’re thinking about something and pretending you aren’t.” Clara laughed softly. “I’m working on that.” “You’re not very good at it.”
Perhaps she wasn’t.
After Ella disappeared upstairs, Clara remained sitting at the table. The house was quiet. For years she had thought about that period of her life as though responsibility had simply arrived slightly earlier for her than it did for other people. Looking at Ella made that explanation feel less convincing. She was not seeing somebody immature. She was not seeing somebody sheltered from reality. She was not seeing somebody who lacked resilience. She was seeing a fifteen-year-old girl. And for the first time in a very long while, Clara found herself wondering what fifteen-year-old Clara might have looked like if life had allowed her to remain one.
Sam
The shower had been unreliable for several weeks.
Some mornings it worked perfectly. Other mornings it seemed to operate according to rules known only to itself. The water would suddenly turn cold without warning before returning moments later at a temperature capable of removing several layers of skin. Clara had already researched replacement units, compared prices and saved the numbers of two local plumbers on her phone. The plan was simple. She would make a few calls on Monday. The problem did not particularly worry her. Like most problems, it had already been categorised, organised and assigned a solution.
That Saturday she spent the afternoon in town with Ella. There were school supplies to buy, trainers that needed replacing and a café Ella insisted made the best hot chocolate in existence. Several hours later they returned home carrying more shopping bags than either of them had intended. The first thing Clara noticed was a large cardboard box beside the recycling bin. The second was Sam.
At first she assumed he had simply come to visit. Then she noticed the toolbox sitting near the back door and the damp marks on the bathroom floor visible through the hallway. By the time Sam casually mentioned that he had spent most of the afternoon replacing the shower, the irritation had already begun settling somewhere inside her. Looking back, Clara would have struggled to explain exactly why.
The shower now worked perfectly. The problem had been solved. The replacement unit looked better than the old one and, judging by the expression on Sam’s face, he appeared quietly pleased with himself. Yet Clara felt something entirely different. The conversation that followed remained surprisingly vivid in her memory. Not because it became a major argument. In many ways that was the problem. Sam never became defensive. He never raised his voice. He simply looked confused.
“You fixed it?”
Sam smiled.
“That’s usually what fixing it means.”
Clara didn’t smile back.
“I was going to call somebody on Monday.”
“I know.”
“You knew that?”
“Yes.”
Clara found herself asking questions that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. Why had he not mentioned it beforehand? Why had he not spoken to her first? What if something had gone wrong? What if he had damaged something? What if he had hurt himself? The more she spoke, the less convinced she became by her own explanations. Sam listened patiently before eventually reminding her that she had spent the previous week talking about getting the shower fixed. His reasoning seemed straightforward enough. The shower needed fixing. He had the time. He knew how to do it. He thought it would help. The look on his face was not irritation. It was something closer to disappointment. Not because the shower mattered, but because he had expected her to be pleased. The explanation should have settled the matter. Instead, Clara remained irritated.
Over the following days the subject surfaced more than once. Never dramatically. Never loudly. Yet there was an unmistakable distance between them that had not existed before. Sam appeared careful around the topic, as though uncertain how a kind gesture had somehow become a source of tension. One evening, whilst they were making dinner, he quietly observed that Clara seemed uncomfortable whenever other people did things for her.
“That’s not true,” she replied immediately.
Sam shrugged. “Maybe.”
“It isn’t.”
“Okay.”
The comment annoyed her immediately.
The conversation moved elsewhere, but the observation lingered in a way she found difficult to explain. Not because she believed it was true, but because she felt unusually defensive whenever she remembered it.
For the rest of the week Clara continued telling herself that the issue had been communication. Sam should have spoken to her first. Sam should have mentioned what he was planning. Sam should not have made decisions about her house without asking. The explanation felt sensible. Reasonable. Complete. Yet, every so often, she would remember the brief look of confusion on Sam’s face when he realised she was upset. He had genuinely believed he was helping. That part was difficult to ignore. The shower worked exactly as it was supposed to. The problem had been solved. For reasons Clara could not quite understand, the matter refused to disappear with it.
The Red Kite
Clara began the session by talking about the shower.
At first it seemed almost too ordinary to bring into therapy. A broken shower. A Saturday afternoon. Sam trying to help. The sort of small domestic disagreement that probably happened in houses everywhere. Yet the irritation had stayed with her for longer than she wanted to admit, and by the time she sat down that week she seemed both embarrassed by it and unable to leave it alone.
“He fixed it,” she said, looking towards the floor for a moment. “That was the problem. Which sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud.”
The therapist waited.
“I know how it sounds,” Clara continued. “The shower was broken. I was going to call someone. Sam fixed it. That should be the end of the story.” She gave a small, uncertain smile. “Most people would probably be pleased.”
“Were you?”
Clara breathed out through her nose, almost a laugh, though not quite. “No.” She paused. “I mean, maybe a bit. But not really. I was annoyed. More than annoyed, actually. I felt… I don’t know. Like he’d stepped into something that wasn’t his to step into.”
The therapist did not answer immediately. Clara seemed to expect something in the space that followed, perhaps a question, perhaps an interpretation, perhaps some gentle contradiction. When none came, she shifted slightly in the chair and carried on.
“He said I don’t like people doing things for me.” Her expression changed as she said it, as though the sentence still irritated her. “Which isn’t true. I mean, it isn’t. I don’t mind help. I just don’t like people making decisions without asking me.” That sounded reasonable enough. Clara clearly believed it. Yet as she spoke, something in the explanation seemed to lose its solidity. She looked down at her hands and rubbed her thumb against the edge of one fingernail.
“I suppose it bothered me that he was right about part of it,” she said eventually. “Not all of it. But part of it.”
The therapist nodded slightly.
“I keep thinking about the look on his face,” Clara said. “Not angry. Just… confused. Like he’d walked into a room he thought he understood and suddenly all the furniture had moved.” She smiled faintly at the image, then looked away. “He was trying to be kind.”
The room settled around that.
For a while Clara said nothing. The silence was not empty, though it seemed to make her restless. She looked at the clock, then at the carpet, then back towards the therapist.
“I’ve been running again,” she said.
It arrived as though changing the subject, though something in her tone suggested the opposite. The therapist simply remained with her.
“Not loads. Just a few times a week. I think I needed to feel stronger.” Clara frowned slightly. “That sounds dramatic. I don’t mean emotionally stronger. I mean physically. I wanted to feel my body doing something properly. Moving. Working. Not just carrying shopping bags or getting through shifts or rushing from one thing to the next.”
She paused.
“There’s a route near the fields. I go early sometimes, before work if I can. Or on Sundays if Ella is still asleep. It’s quiet there. Not silent exactly, but quiet enough. You can hear your own breathing.”
The therapist gave a small nod, and Clara seemed to take it as permission to continue.
“Last week I thought I saw my dad.”
The sentence came out quickly, almost before she had decided to say it.
The therapist’s expression altered only slightly.
“Or someone who looked like him,” Clara added. “I don’t know. That’s the problem. I was running past the allotments and there was this man standing by the gate. Same build. Same way of standing. Same sort of coat he’d wear.”
She stopped.
“I only saw him for a few seconds.”
“What was that like?”
Clara frowned slightly.
“I don’t know.”
The answer seemed genuine.
“I suppose…” She paused. “I suppose I felt angry at first. Then I wasn’t sure if it was actually him. Then I started wondering whether I’d imagined it because I’ve been thinking about him more lately.”
“The uncertainty stayed with you.”
“Yes.”
Clara looked down at her hands.
“I kept replaying it afterwards. If it was him, why didn’t he say anything? But then I didn’t say anything either. I could have stopped running. I could have turned around.”
She shrugged.
“But I didn’t.”
The room settled into silence.
For a few moments neither of them spoke.
“I don’t think it was really about him,” Clara said eventually.
The therapist remained quiet.
“I think it was more about not knowing.”
She sat with that for a moment.
“I hate not knowing.”
The words seemed to surprise her slightly.
“I always have.”
Another silence followed. Not awkward. Not uncomfortable. Simply a space in which neither person appeared in a hurry to move. When Clara spoke again, her voice had changed slightly.
“I saw a Red Kite. You know the bird?”
The therapist nodded gently.
A faint smile appeared on Clara’s face, the first genuinely relaxed expression she had shown that session.
“It was beautiful.”
She seemed to disappear briefly into the memory.
“It was high up at first, just circling above the fields. You know how they move? The wings hardly seem to do anything. They just catch the air. It looked completely effortless.”
She paused.
“Then this Blackbird came out of nowhere.”
The smile returned.
“It was tiny compared to the Red Kite. Not tiny-tiny, but small enough that the whole thing looked ridiculous.”
The therapist said nothing.
“The Blackbird kept diving at it. Again and again. Properly going for it. It wasn’t just making noise. It was chasing it away.”
Clara shook her head slightly.
“I remember thinking how brave it looked. Then I realised it probably wasn’t bravery at all. There must have been a nest nearby. Or young. Something worth protecting.”
Her expression softened.
“It wasn’t trying to win.”
The room grew quieter.
“It was just trying to keep something safe.”
“It kept going at it. Again and again. The Red Kite would drift slightly to one side, then circle back, and the Blackbird would go after it again. I stood there watching for ages. I don’t know how long. Long enough that I forgot I was supposed to be running.”
Clara gave a brief, quiet laugh.
“I felt sorry for the Blackbird at first. It looked exhausted. But it didn’t stop. It couldn’t stop, I suppose. Not if there was something down there it had to protect.” She glanced up briefly, meeting the therapist’s eyes before looking away again.
“I understood that part.”
The therapist remained silent.
Clara seemed to notice the silence and almost filled it too quickly, then stopped herself. Her eyes moved somewhere beyond the room, though not to the window or the walls. More as though the image itself had appeared between them.
“When Mum was ill, everything felt like that. The appointments, the school, the questions, the forms, May turning up and making things worse, people asking if we had enough support. It felt like things were always coming too close. Not always bad things. Some of them were probably good things. People trying to help. But they still felt like something coming towards us.”
Her voice became quieter.
“I didn’t know which things were safe.”
The therapist gave the smallest nod.
“So I kept them away,” Clara said. “Or tried to. Teachers. Neighbours. Hospital staff. Anyone who asked too much. I think I thought if people came too close, they might take something. Ella, maybe. Or Mum’s dignity. Or the little bit of normal life we still had left.”
She looked down at her hands.
“I know that sounds strange.”
“It doesn’t.”
The words were soft enough not to disturb the movement of the session.
Clara did not respond immediately.
“The Blackbird made sense to me,” she said. “It wasn’t brave in some heroic way. It was just doing what it had to do. Something was behind it. Something that couldn’t protect itself.”
She sat with that for a while.
Then, slowly, the image changed.
“The strange thing was that the Red Kite never really seemed interested in the fight,” Clara said. “The Blackbird looked frantic. The Red Kite looked occupied by something else entirely.” Her eyes had become fixed, as if following the bird across an invisible sky. “It kept circling. Even after the Blackbird stopped. That’s what I remember most now. Not the Blackbird, actually. I thought it was, but it isn’t.”
She seemed momentarily surprised by her own realisation.
“The Blackbird disappeared back into the trees eventually. Or maybe it just stopped chasing. Whatever it was protecting was safe. The danger had gone.”
Her voice slowed.
“But the Red Kite carried on.”
The therapist did not speak.
“It just kept circling above the field. Round and round. Not hurried. Not reacting. Just… there. Still watching everything. Still moving with the air. It made it look effortless, but I suppose it couldn’t have been. Staying up like that must take something, even if you can’t see it.”
The room was very quiet now.
Clara seemed to realise she had been speaking for some time. She blinked, as though returning briefly to the chair beneath her, the floor beneath her feet, the therapist sitting opposite. Then she continued.
“I kept waiting for it to land.”
The words came softly.
“I don’t know why. I just did. I thought it would eventually settle somewhere. A tree maybe. A post. Somewhere. But it didn’t. It just kept moving.” Her eyes were wet now, though no tears fell. “I stood there for ages watching it, and I remember thinking it must know where to land. It must have somewhere. Birds have somewhere, don’t they? A nest. A tree. Some place they go when they’re done.”
The therapist’s voice was careful.
“And this one didn’t.”
Clara shook her head slowly.
“Not while I was watching.”
The silence that followed felt different from the earlier silences. Clara did not seem impatient with it now. She seemed held inside it, still following the bird in her mind. “Maybe that’s what stayed with me,” she said. “Not that it was flying. It was beautiful flying. Everyone would look at it and think that. How graceful it was. How easy it looked.” Her mouth tightened slightly.
“But it never came down.”
For a moment neither of them moved.
Then Clara inhaled quietly, as though some part of her had only just noticed she had been holding her breath.
The room remained silent.
And for the first time that session, Clara did not seem in any hurry to fill it.
She Never Came Back Down
The image of the Red Kite stayed with me long after writing Clara’s story.
Not because I understood it.
Quite the opposite.
Like many moments that emerge within therapy, it seemed to contain more meaning than could be fully grasped in the moment. The image appeared unexpectedly, lingered, and then refused to disappear. Perhaps that is why certain images remain with us. Not because they provide answers, but because they continue asking questions.
In the therapy room, Clara spoke about a Red Kite being repeatedly chased by a much smaller bird. The smaller bird appeared determined, relentless, and almost reckless in its efforts to drive the larger bird away. Yet as Clara continued speaking, her attention seemed to drift elsewhere. The image gradually became less about the smaller bird and more about the Red Kite itself.
What remained striking was not the conflict.
It was the circling.
Long after the encounter had ended, the Red Kite remained in the air.
There are many possible ways of thinking about such an image. Perhaps none are entirely right. Perhaps several are true at the same time. Therapy rarely offers simple conclusions, particularly when we are exploring experiences that have shaped us over many years.
One thinker whose work may be relevant here is the Hungarian psychoanalyst Sándor Ferenczi (1873–1933). Ferenczi became interested in how children adapt when the adults around them are unable to provide sufficient safety, protection or emotional care. Rather than focusing solely upon what happened to a child, he became curious about what the child was required to become in response.
Among his most enduring ideas was the observation that some children appear unusually mature for their age. They become practical, responsible, capable and emotionally self-sufficient long before they should ever need to. From the outside, such children are often admired. They may seem resilient, dependable or wise beyond their years. Yet Ferenczi wondered what had been sacrificed in order for that adaptation to emerge.
Readers may notice echoes of this idea throughout Clara’s story.
A father leaves. A mother becomes increasingly unwell. A younger sister requires care. Responsibilities arrive long before they should. In such circumstances, childhood itself can begin to narrow. What emerges instead is often competence. Responsibility. Usefulness. The ability to keep going. Yet the question remains: what happens when the original danger has passed? What happens when the roles we once needed to survive become difficult to put down?
The Red Kite does not answer these questions. Nor does Clara.
At least not yet.
Perhaps that is why the image remains so compelling. The bird continues circling above the field, inviting reflection rather than certainty. And perhaps, like Clara, we are left watching it for a little longer.
Further Reading
Readers interested in exploring these ideas further may wish to learn more about the work of Sándor Ferenczi (1873–1933), a Hungarian psychoanalyst whose writings on trauma, adaptation and emotional development continue to influence psychodynamic thinking today.
Particularly relevant to this piece are Ferenczi’s observations about children who become prematurely mature when circumstances require them to assume responsibilities beyond their years. His work invites us to consider not only what happened to a child, but also what the child was required to become in response.
For readers wishing to explore these ideas further, an accessible introduction can be found in:
You may also find it helpful to read more about Ferenczi’s concept of the “Wise Baby”, which expands upon many of the themes explored in Clara’s story.
A Note on the Characters
The characters within this piece are fictional and have been created from a combination of themes, experiences, emotional patterns and clinical observations that may emerge across many different lives. They are not intended to represent any one individual.
About Therapy with Alexis
If Clara’s story resonated with you, you may recognise aspects of your own experiences within it. Many people seek therapy not because of a single event, but because certain patterns, roles or responsibilities seem to follow them throughout life. Sometimes these patterns were once necessary. Sometimes they continue long after the original circumstances have changed.
Psychodynamic counselling offers a space to explore these experiences at your own pace. Rather than focusing solely on present difficulties, it considers how earlier relationships, adaptations and emotional experiences may continue to shape the way we think, feel and relate to others today.
I offer individual psychodynamic counselling both online and in person. New clients are welcome to arrange a free 30-minute initial assessment, providing an opportunity to discuss what brings you to therapy and whether psychodynamic counselling feels like the right fit for you.
